Winnebago County sheriff’s deputies to start carrying heroin antidote

Thursday

Jun 5, 2014 at 9:00 AMJun 5, 2014 at 3:57 PM

By Chris GreenRockford Register Star

ROCKFORD — Winnebago County sheriff’s deputies carry an assortment of weapons to defend themselves and, if necessary, to take a life. They also carry first aid kits, automatic external defibrillators and other pieces of medical equipment to save lives.

Soon, each deputy’s arsenal of life-saving equipment will be expanded to include Naloxone, an antidote for heroin overdoses.

Starting next Monday and Wednesday, OSF Saint Anthony Medical Center personnel will be on hand at the Winnebago County Justice Center to teach the department’s 100-plus deputies how to administer the drug.

“When we heard what you can do with this (Naloxone) and the number of overdoses that go through our coroner’s office every year, it just seemed like the next logical step in the progression of doing what you can to save lives when you are a first responder,” Sheriff Dick Meyers said.

Winnebago County, like the rest of the country, is battling a heroin epidemic. Last year, 51 of the county’s 124 overdose deaths were heroin-related, according to Winnebago County Coroner Sue Fiduccia.

Heroin provides a cheap, fast high accompanied by the potentially lethal side effect of suppressing the user’s breathing.

Naloxone, more commonly known as Narcan, is a fast-acting drug that counteracts the effects of opiates such as heroin. It is not addictive, it can’t be used to get high, and it has no effect on a person who doesn’t have an opiate in his system.

DuPage County sheriff’s deputies and other police agencies in that county started carrying Narcan earlier this year. On May 27, the New York Police Department, the nation’s largest police force, announced that nearly 20,000 Narcan kits would be supplied to its officers.

The Rockford Police Department has said it has no plans to equip officers with Narcan because of the rapid response of the city’s firefighters and paramedics who already carry the drug. But for residents outside the Rockford city limits, the first responder likely is a sheriff’s deputy.

Each Winnebago County deputy will carry one Naloxone kit, which contains sterile gloves and two vials of the drug. The Naloxone is administered through a syringe topped with a cone-shaped atomizer and sprayed into the patient’s nostrils. The life-saving drug has a shelf life of two years.

Meyers said several rural law enforcement agencies in the county had expressed interest in sending officers to one of next week’s 40-minute training sessions.

Pecatonica Police Chief Bob Smith said he would send two full-time officers to the training as well as a number of part-time officers.

“We’ve had a couple of (heroin) overdoses in the two years that I’ve been here,” he said. “Heroin seems to be the drug of preference to the middle class.”

Roscoe Police Chief Jamie Evans said her entire department, which includes 10 full-time officers, will be trained to administer Narcan.

“Any time you can save a life, no matter what the situation is and you have the tools, you should do it,” she said.

Meyers said enough Naloxone kits will be purchased to supply the surrounding rural police agencies. Each kit costs $50. The sheriff said the initial start-up cost, about $5,000, is being paid for with confiscated drug money.

Rockford’s three hospitals will continue to supply the sheriff’s department with Narcan each time a deputy administers the drug. The hospitals, Meyers said, have agreed to bill the patient’s insurance to pay for future purchases. The sheriff’s department will absorb the cost of future Narcan kits if the patient does not have insurance.

“There’s always a cost to everything we do,” Meyers said, “but sometimes the cost of not doing something is a steeper price to pay.”